The Editorial Board of «SOCAR Proceedings» journal commits to the internationally accepted principles of publication ethics expressed in the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE Council. Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers. September 2017. www.publicationethics.org). Editorial Board members, authors, reviewers, publisher shall adhere to ethical standards, rules and regulations and take any necessary steps to prevent rule breaking.

Communications with Authors

Authors should familiarize themselves with the following information before submitting their paper:

Fuide for Authors

Requirements for submitted papers

All authors must take fully responsibility for the content of their paper.

Duties of Editorial Board

With communications with authors, the Editorial Board and Editorial Office of the journal undertake to comply to the following basic ethical principles: 

• All authors are equal. The Editorial Board decisions are only based on the paper quality proposed for publication.
• The Editorial Board should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to the race, sex, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship, social status and political preferences of the authors;
• Ensure confidentiality of the submitted paper and any information until its publishing.
• Publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.
• Entitle the Editorial Office to reject publications containing plagiarism and false data.
• Have a right to reject the paper or require its revision, if it does not comply with the standards of the Journal.
• The paper, if accepted for publication, is placed in the open access.
• Publish information about research funding, if the author gives such information.
• Take measures to correct factual, grammatical, stylistic and any other errors when such are detected.
• Discuss all editor’s alterations in the paper with the author to get their approval.

Duties of Authors 

• The author must provide reliable research results. Deliberately mistaken or falsified statements are unacceptable.
• The author does not have to submit the manuscript to the journal that has been sent to another journal and it is under consideration, as well as the article, which was already published in another journal.
• Authors shall adhere to ethical principles, when criticizing or commenting a third-party research.
• Co-authors of the article should include all persons who have made significant contributions to the study. It is unacceptable to indicate persons among the co-authors who have not participated in the study.
• Authors should respect the work of the Editorial Board and reviewers and eliminate these shortcomings or explain them reasonably.
• Authors should submit and prepare the paper according to the journal requirements.
• If the author finds out considerable errors or inaccuracies in the article on the stage of the review or after its publication, he must as soon as possible inform the Editorial Board.
• Authors should provide the Editorial Board or publisher with evidence of the accuracy of the original article or correct substantial errors if the Editorial Board or the publisher were notified of them by the third persons.
• Authors shall guarantee that results of the study, which stated in the given manuscript, are completely original. Borrowed fragments or statements must be arranged with the obligatory indication of the author and the primary source. Excessive borrowings and plagiarism in any form are considered to be unethical and unacceptable.
• Authors must provide accurate information about his place of employment, position, academic degree, academic rank, as well as to point the contact information correctly.

Duties of Reviewers 

All submitted articles undergo mandatory reviewing and approval by the Editorial Board. The reviewing allows: 

• the Editorial Office and the Editorial Board to select for publication the papers which are the most important for the industry and the most interesting for the readers;
• the authors to receive an expert assessment and recommendations on how to improve their work from the leading professionals in the industry;
• the professional community to receive a thoroughly checked scientific and technical information.

The Editorial Office of SOCAR Proceedings uses, as the base model, “single-blind review”: the reviewer has information about the authoring team, the name of the reviewer is only known to the editors and is disclosed subject only to the reviewer’s consent.

Peer review rules for papers published in the «SOCAR Proceedings» journal

A single anonymous (“blind”) peer review method is mandatory for processing of all scientific manuscripts submitted to the Editorial Office.

Papers are reviewed by members of the Editorial Board, as well as by invited reviewers -leading experts of the industry.

Editor-in-Chief or Deputy Editor-in-Chief choose reviewer for peer review.

The peer review period is 1-4 months.

The number of reviewers who should be invited in the peer review process is determined by the Editor-in-Chief or Deputy Editor-in-Chief.

The Reviewer may recommend that:

• the paper be accepted without any changes;
• the paper be accepted after provided the authors make the changes suggested by the reviewer;
• the paper be rejected;
• the paper be sent to another journal, more suitable for the scope.

Upon the peer review completion, reviewers are requested to make one of the following recommendations:

• accept the paper for publication it its current form;
• invite the author/s to revise their paper following the presented changes;
• suggest that the publication decision be reached following additional reviewing by another expert;
• reject the paper outright.

Information about the review results is sent to the authors.

The revised paper should be returned within 3 months (depending on the number of recommendations and their complexity).

The revised paper is resent for peer reviewing.

If authors do not return the revised version for 4 months since the opinion being sent, Editorial Board annuls the article from publication reserve even if there is no refusal from revision from the authors.

If an author and reviewers have insolvable contradictions about the paper, the Editorial Board has a right to send the paper for the additional review. In case of conflict the Editor-in-Chief makes a decision on the Editorial Board meeting.